The invention relates in general to munitions and in particular to cargo projectiles that dispense a payload and descend to the ground at a predetermined velocity, which velocity is scaleable for various non-lethal cargo applications.
The specific problem solved by the invention is controlling the descent rate of a projectile that is used for delivering various non-lethal payloads. Non-lethal projectiles should be non-lethal in every aspect. However, conventional non-lethal applications deliver non-lethal payloads using regular projectile cargo shells that descend at high speed with a significant weight and a lethal kinetic energy. For crowd dispersion or riot control, it may be desirable to deliver from a remote distance a payload such as tear gas or malodorant pellets. While it is desired to disperse the crowd or control the riot, it is not desired to kill or seriously injure anyone.
A problem arises when delivering the payload with conventional munition shells, which impact the ground with a full impact velocity that is converted to lethal kinetic energy. Therefore, there is a need for projectile that deliver non-lethal payloads to be equipped with non-lethal capability. The present invention renders a cargo projectile shell non-lethal by reducing its descent rate with a decelerator.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,782,289 discloses a non-lethal cargo carrier with a fuze located in the boattail. The rear-mounted fuze requires ballast for dynamic flight stability. Without ballast, the center of gravity of the projectile is too far rearward. The projectile with rear-mounted fuze is unlike most Army projectiles and requires special operational and logistic training. The single parachute used as the primary decelerator does not provide as much reliability as dual parachutes. The present invention overcomes the issues associated with the prior non-lethal cargo projectile.